


On The Edge

by redwarmshadow



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anti-Hero, Crapsack World, End of the World, Finding your way in a broken world, Multi, OC, Survival, Villains, Worldbuilding, more to come - Freeform, worm - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-08 22:02:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18903517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redwarmshadow/pseuds/redwarmshadow
Summary: It's February 2011, two years have passed since Scion destroyed the world and Lucas Wilson is on the run. Pursued by psychopaths, accompanied by a dangerous partner, and with a deadly power that creates more troubles that it solves, he's barely surviving. But when a chance to rise out of all of that is presented he's forced to enter to a new world of capes and mosters where all the rules have changed, enemies are many and the difference between being a hero or a monster is narrower than ever....





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning of our tale. Our hero and his partner investigate a ruined and destroyed village where not only resources can be found but also trouble...

**Touch 1.1**

 

Let me start this whole thing with a question: Did you ever wanted to be a hero, like Alexandria? Have superpowers, a cape and a questionable fashion sense? Save people and be cheered on every street?

 

There's no shame in saying yes to all of that. After all who doesn't want to be the hero of their own story? Save the girl, punish the villain and of course have powers. Those are, in my opinion, what seals the deal. Why be normal, _mundane,_ when you can be _super,_ someone better than others with something to prove it. Someone _special._ A dream come true isn't?

 

Or at least I used to think that. Because the truth is, as I stared at the cold and glassy eyes of the dead child, that powers have never brought anything good to this world. Only destruction and sorrow. Sounds negative, right? And dramatic, maybe a little anti-cape for saying so? Well, maybe it looks like that, but turns out I have a lot of evidence backing me up.

 

After all, powers and capes were the things that ended the world.

 

I looked at the corpse once again and rose up. I stood in the ruins of a one floor  family home. Now it was dead, devoid of any life, with only corpses and ghosts as remnants of what once was a family.

 

A family whose corpses I was just looting for any resources I could get. It was a one in  a million shot but it _was_ possible that whoever killed them and the rest of this walled village had left something of value on them. Nope. . I sighed and rose up, lamenting how I desecrated dead people for practically nothing. Again. Ugh.

 

The mother and the father, killed by slash wounds plus a nasty leg amputation on the last one. Clean deaths, or at least ones that weren't so horrifying compared to others I saw. But the child… I avoided looking at the young girl and her tortured body more than necessary. I didn't want more nightmares tonight. Allie didn't deserve more of that, bitch that she was, she at least stood by me on the hard night life our travels.

 

What kind of sick person or group would do all of this? And this wasn't a rhetorical question. There were known groups of raiders, factions and traveling psychopaths that lived and thrived doing this. Ravaging and destroying entire communities in the wilds and outside the walled great cities, where capes and protectors were many. But that still left the doubt of what group could have done this. The Teeth were a suspect, they usually moved through this area and leaving corpses like this were their usual M.O but they weren't the only ones. The Weepers were another one but the lack of creepy cult symbols made that unlikely. Who else? The Fallen were out,  and this was too savage for The Church of Happiness to do it. What other groups were around that could do this? I heard of one calling themselves the Demons of something but they were more like anti heroes wannabes apparently. Too many suspects and zero answers. Great.

  


But I had to admit that while it wasn't a complete success, it wasn't a complete failure either. I found some paper and crayons in the little girl's room and a pretty pink bear plushie with only one arm but otherwise intact. I found a little journal under the parents’ bed and I was surprised with something even more valuable under a loose floorboard: A handgun. Using knowledge ingrained in me-that I had hoped I would never use- I removed the magazine and checked it. Only three bullets, left with no additional ammunition in the hidden compartment. Three bullets, and three family members. I thought of the corpses and their fates and how the little girl… I'd kill my wife and my daughter if I thought that would happen to them. Too bad he didn’t make it.( I knew that the husband had owned the gun, mostly because he died he wearing a black vest, the uniform of this village’s militia). ) He  probably saw his wife and daughter die first.

 

Either way the gun was ours now and its three bullets could still find home in somebody else's head if need be. No other room in the house had anything of value, only broken things and useless knick-knacks. I left everything as it was. The bodies...I'd need help burying them and Allie may not be willing so I just left them there for now. I thought about grabbing some blankets to cover them but I hadn’t see any while looking through the house. Whoever did this took everything of value. I did close their eyes though, partly because it was the right thing to do, and I wasn't ashamed to admit that the other reason was because their frozen and dead looks were really creeping me out.

 

I left the house and went back to the ruined village in search of my partner in crime. And as I moved on the outside of this ruined community of wood houses and dirt streets, where everything was in sight and people probably used to all know each other, I couldn't help how being in it made me nostalgic and prone to remember about the previous community I lived in. I hated that.

 

I hated to feel that way about a place I despised so deeply and I hated the fact that a part of me wanted to go back just because of my family, even it it meant losing myself in the process…

 

I took a breath and relaxed. No use in thinking about what I left behind. I needed to find my companion and make a decision about what we were going to do. It was noon and the sun was up, but out destination was still far and our resources wouldn't last such a trip as they were now. This walled village had been our target to replenish everything we needed and maybe do some jobs to get some money for the big cities. But now the plan was shot and we had to make do with what we could scavenge. The gun was a big win in this situation but it only had three bullets. And anyway, the wilds had lots of unnatural things which could easily walk off gunshots.

 

I just hoped Allie had been more lucky or successful than me on this. That was the third home I’d  sacked and the job didn’t get less gruesome or disgusting. I was lucky that only the last one had corpses in it, but sadly that didn’t mean that the last two had been walks in the park for me. The first one didn’t have any corpses, only blood on the single bedroom of the house. A lot of it, staining the room, the sheets on the floor, the roof, and every inch of the single bed. I really didn’t want to think how the person in there died. I found a pair of surprisingly nice jeans in in the small closet in the blood-stained bedroom. I wondered why they didn’t take  these with them, but I didn’t complain. In the bathroom I found some used soap and last but not least, a kitchen knife on the table of the ruined and overturned kitchen. It was covered in dry blood and I couldn’t help but think in the bedroom covered in blood. I took it anyway because an extra knife was always useful; And blood could be washed.

 

The last house was more disturbing.  It was one of the big ones in that village. It didn’t have anything. Literally anything. It looked like nobody had ever lived there. It didn’t even have signs of struggle, it looked like those houses before anybody moved in.

 

Except for one thing. In the middle of what I supposed was the living room, someone had laid several severed hands together, forming an extremely macabre circle.  In the middle were four more hands two lais side by side and two across. I realized it was an smiley face.. The hands looked fresh cut with liquid blood still pooling on the skin even though the attack to had have happened at least a day and half ago. Powers had to have been involved.

 

I immediately left that house and didn't go back. Allie could explore that macabre shit if she wanted to.

 

Still, now that I think about it, those corpses had looked dead, that was for sure but...they didn't smell like it. And now that I was thinking about it, I was pretty sure that they lacked other characteristics that other recent dead bodies should  had. According to what I remembered, by now the internal organs should have started to decompose and stink, but even after a few days of that...they didn't smell, like at all. Not the corpses or the house. They also looked quite pale and cold but by now they should have started to turn more grey or something…

 

It was like something had stopped the process of decomposition at the earliest phases.

 

“Fuck me,” I said aloud as I made my way through the ruined village. “It never gets any easier does it?”

 

This wasn't supposed to go like this. Why couldn’t we just once find a nice friendly village full of people that they were _alive_ and quite friendly and not another fucking creepy sex cult?

 

I needed to find my creepy companion and get the fuck out of here. A traitorous part of my brain reminded me that that I had only registered three homes and they were at least a few dozen more to check in this small place, but for all I knew those corpses were about to explode or raise as zombies hungry for brains.

 

There was also the fact that we didn't know if whoever did this could come back, and how many they were. The last thing we needed was to have another group of psychopaths on us.

 

It still bothered me A lot. It didn't help that the rationalization for it was really sound. We did need the extra stuff to keep going. We were still in winter and while spring was coming it was still fucking cold, and since we were currently living in the fucking middle of nowhere and all of that we kinda needed everything we could get just to get by. So I did the obviously dumb choice and went to check out more places, because despite whatever rationalization I made up, it was pretty obvious that I´m fucking suicidal.

 

Six more houses, no more macabre shit, and lots of sacking and searching among shattered belongings of other people, and the only thing I had to show for it was an ugly pink sweatshirt with an unicorn in it despite being adult sized, a cracked cup that was mostly intact, a razor blade for shaving that was obviously used, a soap and a hand mirror. Not utterly useless, but definitely not what I wanted or needed.

 

I was really unsatisfied about all I managed to gather and I really wanted to keep going, but I realized it was getting late. Though the sun was still up, we had a schedule and we needed to find a place for camp tonight that wasn’t here. For a millisecond I entertained the idea of staying for the night, but I quickly squashed that. Searching this place was already dangerous as it was and staying seemed like a worse idea. We needed to find all we could and get away. Whatever faction that was protecting this was bound to show up sooner or later after noticing something was wrong, and the last thing we needed was to meet them.

 

Now, where the hell was my partner in crime?

 

“Where are you little psychopath?” I mumbled. I was like 80% sure she wasn't an actual psychopath or sociopath, or anything in that shade of crazy. I was, however, 100% sure that her power had messed her up in a fundamental way, that made her see the world in a different way. A way that wasn't always agreeable with something funny called “human morality.” However she hadn't backstabbed me yet and she’d even saved my life several times. There was also that whole thing on the compound where without her I would be dead. So at least I could attest that for now we were in this together, and she was not a threat to me. _Yet_. However I was definitely sure that she was threat to everyone and everything else. There was a reason after all, she was locked up.

 

I made my way to the bigger buildings in the village, situated roughly in the center of it. A tall and large building painted white with red tiles and top, which reminded me of those old colonial houses from times past, when the world wasn’t a shitty dystopian novel. That was also the meeting point we agreed on, and where I would find out if she had found something worthwhile.

 

As I made my way there, I thought about the attack, and how there was so much _wrong_ about the way it seemed to have gone.. This was, of course, a raid to steal resources and as a predictable result it ended with a lot of dead bodies on the losing side. But looking at the streets, well... they were really empty. No bodies piling in the streets or in a big, fat pyre in the center of the village or outside as far as we could see when we scouted the place. There was also a obvious lack of grotesque and gory “decorations”: No bodies hanging on somewhere or piling up in odd shapes like  the common evil raider behaviour. Only a few houses had the same disturbing decoration or bodies left there. Most of them had signs of struggle, and were utterly sacked, but just those three close to each other had those creepy remains that looked like a serial killer had took a liking to interior decorating…

 

A rowdy and more psychopathic sub faction, or maybe a single parahuman among the raid group? Or maybe they were ordered to do that? How many more homes had butchered families, and how many were empty without anything important in them?

 

There was also an oddity in the village’s  growth which might account for the attack. We’d checked the map, and this place had expanded very recently, from an insignificant camp to an actual walled village with decent houses and resources. That was a big step, and it meant one thing. Someone had triggered in the village, and someone had noticed. Just like everything else, nowadays capes were an important resource, and a lot of big factions wanted them. This village was probably under the protection of one of them, especially if they were powerful. Boston and Brockton Bay were the closest urban centers with the resources to spare so it had to be one of them. They also had a lot of enemies that wouldn´t mind burning their protectorates to the ground. And the capes that this place  probably had? They were either dead or on assignment for their patrons.

 

A lot of ifs in this situation, which made me restless and nervous.

 

What was supposed to be just a simple trade- turned-into looting ended up being bigger that I’ve could have wanted. I just hoped that Allie had found something worth all of this.

 

Seriously why did I ever listened to he-

 

I stiffened as I felt the unmistakable cold of a blade on my neck.  My heart started thumping faster and faster, blood rushing to my body and ringing in my ears. What the hell!? What!? How!? Who!? A survivor? Or a member of the attacking party? Shit, shit I had to figure something out. I was in no way dying in this fucking place, oh god I didn’t want to do this but, fuck I’ll have to use it again and…

 

“Don’t move, don’t do anything. If you even twitch, then I’ll cut your fucking throat and...”

 

Wait. That voice…

 

…

 

...

 

_That bitch. I'm going to fucking kill her._

 

“... and then I’m going to shove it right up to your a- OUCH!

 

I moved, grabbing her arm, hard and twisting it, being careful to point the knife at her side while I ducked and got out of her reach. I was bigger and technically stronger than her so I was almost tempted to stab her a few times as punishment (she’d live) but instead I went all the way and twisted her arm behind her, causing her to drop the knife.

 

“Fuck, fuck, okay I get it. Stop, please, ouch. Fuck, stop dammit. It hurts!!”

 

I let her go but I kept the knife while loosely pointing it at her.

 

“Okay. So, what the fuck? Is this some sort of new twisted joke for you, crazy bitch?” She’d better have a good explanation for that crap because if not this knife was going to find a new home.

 

I let her recover for a few seconds, which to her meant whining about her arm. And while I tried not to show it, I was also pretty rattled. I didn't see that one coming and it almost brought memories back that I didn't want to give space to breathe.

 

“Ugh did you have to be so tough with me? You could have broken my arm y’know.” Her voice was grating and annoying, and once again I couldn’t help wonder if she did it to annoy me and why I accepted traveling with her. Oh right, because we kinda needed each other to survive and she knew it. Bitch.

 

“I could've stabbed you and left to bleed but I didn’t it, so start talking before I regret it. Why the hell did you pull off that stunt, you psycho?”

 

Though I couldn’t see it because of her full face mask I knew she was smiling, and that reflected in her voice. “Duh, I thought it was obvious. I did it to help you!”

 

I stared at her. “What?” I said in the flattest and driest tone of voice I could muster.

 

“To help you!! With your powers I mean.” Oh, that. I frowned and looked at her, trying to express my annoyance and bad mood, even if she couldn’t see my face either. Seriously, that was her idea of helping me? Putting a knife to my throat? And the worst of all of this? I wasn't even surprised about that.

 

“And you tried to kill me for that? Some help there.”

 

“I wasn’t actually going to kill dummy. Just scare the crap out of you so you’d use your powers  on me to defend yourself. You’re a parahuman now, so act like it. And stop calling me by my name. Call me Hellequin, and yourself Specter, dumbass.”

 

I sighed, my bad mood slowly slipping away but still present. “You do realize my powers aren’t safe for public use right? I could kill you with them. Also, Specter and Hellequin are both really fucking stupid as codenames.”

 

She huffed with indignation, or at least pretended to be indignant. “No they're not! And you can't  complain about anything because when I asked you to tell me what kind of name you would like to have, you just told me to make one for you.” She stopped and tilted her head like a cat and then spoke in a tone that left no doubts she was probably smirking under that ridiculous theater mask. “But if you have any other name to suggest you're welcome to tell me.”

 

I frowed, annoyed. No, I didn’t have any idea for better names, mostly because I never actually thought I would gain powers. I’d dreamed of that sometimes, to be like the Triumvirate and save people, but that was before all of this. After Scion’s rampage, dreams of flying and throwing multi colored lasers turned into dreams of not having to listen to the ravings of madmen, sleeping on my own bed and playing videogames with my friends. Something really mundane, and maybe boring, but it was still something I craved and I was not ashamed to admit it. Others could have excitement and adventures and even powers, I just wanted to go back and take back everything I lost.

 

I looked at Allie, no sorry, _Hellequin_ (it even sounded stupid in my head) and turned around to the direction of the big house, leaving her behind.

 

“H-Hey don’t do that, you jerk, don’t leave me here when you get all prissy with me.”

 

I ignored her and kept going.

 

“Hey, wait I-If you go I won’t tell you what I found!! And it’s something really interesting! I swear!”

 

That made me stop. While we weren't on the verge of dying resources wise we also weren't in a situation which we could reject anything offered to us. In short, it was a serious topic that she wouldn’t joke about in any way. So I decided to believe her, for now.

 

“Money, weapons?” I paused a little. “Food?”

 

Her smile was clear to me even with the mask. “All of that and more.”

  
  
                                                                                                        **Touch 1.1 END.**  
  
  



	2. Touch 1.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucas and Hellequin go hunting for resources to a creepy house.

**Touch 1.2**

 

Our trek to the house was blissfully silent, something that I was thankful for as it gave me some space to think about what she told me. That and more? That was ominous. Still, if Allie, no sorry again,  _ Hellequin, _ thought that she found something really good, then I didn’t doubt it would be worthwhile. Still, I wanted to know what it was. And I needed to check out something else. We were separated for a while, and a lot of things could have happened in that time, a lot of unknown factors that I needed to check. And with the confirmation that capes were around I needed to know. 

 

“Can you give me a clue about how much?  I’m really curious about it,” I told her.

 

“Nope,” she said, popping out the ‘p’. “It’s better if I show it to you, believe me it’s going to blow your mind.”

 

I opened my mouth.

 

“It’s not going to do it literally, silly. Also it’s not going to eat you, or kill you or skewer you or maim you or hurt you in any emotional or, psychological or physical way. It's only going to blow you mind in the best  _ metaphorical  _ way possible. Got it?”

 

I closed my mouth and nodded. But she looked at me and then spoke once again. “Andddd it’s pretty obvious that you’re still super tense about it so, fine. Let’s do this. No matter how fucking ridiculous it is every time we do it.” She turned to look at me as she spoke in an annoyed tone. “Ballerina, pink, three-five-ten.”

 

I relaxed. “Toy soldier, green, two-four-nine.”

 

“Happy now?” she asked. “That I’m not mastered or anything.”

 

“Pretty much. It’d be sad if after everything that we went through I had to kill you.” 

 

“Aww, so do you care.” She grabbed my arm and interlocked it with hers but I shrugged it off. She just took it in stride. ”Now let’s go to see your big surprise. And believe me, it's going to solve a lot of our problems.”

 

I rolled my eyes, and looked at her. She was wearing mostly black clothes lightly decorated to her tastes, the only thing showing she was a cape being her hard golden mask. It was a golden theater mask of a smiling woman with pink decorations in the place for lips, eyebrows and eyelashes. Her blonde hair was in a bun and her black leggings had pink lines running through them. She had black leather jacket, stolen from someone and with signs of use, with practically no decoration. 

 

In contrast to her and her thing for the color pink, my clothes were almost completely black. My own, and also stolen, black jacket was newer and instead of combat boots I chose to wear some comfortable sneakers in a dark blue color. I had some old jeans and my mask, just like hers, covered my entire face and had a huge (and in my opinion, highly disturbing) smile on it. It was painted black to complete what she called my “future suicide victim look.” I tried at first to admonish her about making light of such a delicate subject, then I realized I couldn't because I couldn’t give two fucks about it.  This wasn’t the look I imagined I’d have when I became a cape. At first I couldn't help but think that we looked like villains with the full faced masks and black as our primary color, but then I came to the realization that it  _ didn’t matter  _ how I looked.

 

Heroes were a thing of the past now,  besides the rare few in some of the big cities.Most people now only cared about getting by and living to see another day. And we weren’t different. The masks were just for show, to let people know what we were when we had to, or just as protection. Most of the time we didn’t even wear them, but Hellequin always insisted on putting them on when scouting somewhere new, and for once I agreed with her without second thought.

 

In some places being a cape was a boon and in others an invitation to trouble.

 

“Do we have to do that song and dance every time we split? It's getting annoying.” Hellequin said at my side.

 

“Song and dance?”

 

“You know what I mean! This cloak and dagger shit! It’s getting on my nerves. It’s tiring to remember all these codes and phrases and counter-codes or whatever the hell they are.” She paused a little and folded her arms. “Just because you got a giant boner for all of that doesn’t mean it's actually  _ fun.  _ It’s the opposite, if you didn't know.”

 

I sighed. This again? “First I don’t have boner for that or anything.” I ignored her giggle and kept going. “Second it doesn’t have to be fun, because it’s necessary. If there are Masters or others Strangers in the area we need to check if we are still ourselves. And third you used to be a Ward didn’t you? Wasn’t your entire career 45% bureaucracy, 50% PR and 5% fighting bad guys? You should at least be used to this.”

 

She snorted in a derisive way. “You're giving wayyy too little to the second and way to much to the other two. I did a lot more PR than I ever wished to and far less actual buttkicking. It drove me nuts having to care about all of these little things like public perception, or having to find a way to use my power in a friendly way, or even having to do _ constant  _ public visitations to schools and public places to do things like ‘say no to gangs’. And don’t get me started on the bitch that was my director. She looked like she smelled shit every time one of us got to her office. Ah and how could I forgot the other Wards, god they were such a group of whiny, little-”

 

“You’re ranting,” I interrupted her. “Again.”

 

She stopped, and let out a nervous and embarrassed chuckle. “Sorry”, she said. I wasn’t actually bothered though, she did that sometimes. “But just so you know if it wasn’t obvious already, I didn’t like that much being a Ward.”

 

“Why not? It sounds like a sweet gig.” Being a hero was my dream job when I was younger and I admit that getting some information of the life of one was appealing to me. Just because that dream was dead didn't mean I wasn’t curious about it.

 

“It isn't as dreamy as they made it sound during the publicity stunts. Why do you think there are so few heroes?” As we got closer to the house, I noticed that her tone of voice didn’t have the same levity as always. In fact it had become rather contemplative. “In general we did little good that actually sticked, and besides I wasn’t there of my own free will. I was a probationary Ward due to some shit I pulled that now I regret”. She didn’t elaborate anymore and I didn’t press. “Anywayyy, when I gave you those Master-Stranger protocol books , that I eh, ‘borrowed’, I thought you would use them to wise up about how people react to powers like yours. I did not expect that you would get really into it and give me flashbacks of hours of memorizing ridiculous phrases.”

 

“It’s necessa-.”

 

“Necessary, I know. It doesn’t mean that it’s not driving me fucking nuts.”

 

“Well, I’d rather have you annoyed than fucking possessed so stop complaining and just bear with it, just like I do with your fucking personality every day.”

 

“Ha ha ha.” She laughed humorlessly, but didn’t return the jab for once. Instead we kept going till we reached the house.

 

“We’re here,” I said, even if it was unnecessary due to the sheer size of the building.

 

It was a colonial house with two floors, which made me curious if it was already here or if it was built recently in imitation of the style. It was painted a dull gray, with a nice looking wood door that looked new despite the recent violence in the small town. It had five windows in total - two on the side on the first floor and three above - and had two chimneys on the extremes of a roof of red tiles. A small road led to the house and some steps to the side was a nice and simple garden. It was all very nice, but there was something very off about it. Because unlike  basically every other building, this had no visible damage whatsoever. 

 

“Did you check inside?”

 

“Yeah. And inside is practically as spotless as the outside, no signs of struggle or looting. It looks like if someone decided to clean the house intead of sacking it. Really creepy.” She swung her arm at the back of my head and for once I didn’t push her back. Then she got  awkwardly close to my ear and said in a conspiratorial way, “But I managed to find what they wanted, and while it doesn’t answer all the questions, it’s enough to know why they did this.” Hellequin let go of me and clapped me on the back a little too forcefully on purpose. Then she made a grand gesture like presenting a famous person or a prize on a competition that was about to be revealed. “Come, my little sidekick, time to give you any early birthday present.”

 

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, whatever, let’s go. Also I’m not your sidekick.”

 

xXx

 

She was right. Even if I would not admit it.

 

This place was really creepy. Everything was so...normal. It seemed that nothing on the exterior managed to reach this house. It was the opposite image that the rest of this village presented and that was highly unnerving. What had happened here? Did the attackers never reach here, or maybe they were ordered not to attack this place, or maybe someone else had attacked this place. 

 

“Did you figure out why this place is so…”  _ Fucking weird.  _  “Untouched?”

 

She shook her head. “No. I don’t know.”

 

We moved inside the house. The door was already open and we entered without problem . Inside, everything had a nice smell and was decorated with surprising austere yet nice looking furniture. In front of us there was a stairway leading to the second floor while to the right there was another door. The right side, however, was an open path that led to what I assumed was the living room. I followed her there and I couldn’t help but be surprised that instead of finding an actual living room I found myself looking at some sort of classroom, with several cubicles facing a mounted plastic board. The classroom took slightly more than half of the room, and behind the blackboard I could see a few desks close to one another. A chair was placed at one side of the board and on it was one of those old big rulers. I stared, checking the place out 

 

Hellequin sat on one the tables and spoke. “Despite its looks this place wasn’t the house of the bigshot ruling this village. From what I found it looked like it used to be some sort school-slash-administrative building where kids came to classes and the adults ran the place. There were some useless papers about it. Mostly complaints from the people and other stuff. Nothing useful to us. I thought it would be interesting to you. What this place was, that is.”

 

“What's in the other rooms?”

 

“The door to the left of the entrance leads to a kitchen. The second floor has more offices, all empty or full of administrative junk. Nothing important. Through the back door of this room there are even  _ more  _ offices and  __ stuff like that. And lastly there’s a small bathroom through the door on the right end of this room.”

 

I nodded to all of this. “And my so called surprise? Please tell me it isn't the mountains of used paper. “

 

She gave a short snort, rose up and started going to the end of the room, beyond the board. “Follow me.”

 

We went through the classroom to the big office in the back. It was much more of a traditional office with desks separated by cubicles, and in each one of them were some papers, pens, and to my surprise, some of them had phones.

 

“When you checked this place did it mention to who they talked to?” I said, gesturing to one of the phones on one of the more messy desks.

 

“Probably to the faction that sponsored and protected them, but I don´t know, they took everything important. I know, I checked.” I was doubtful about that but I didn’t say anything.

 

I thought a little about it. “Brockton Bay or Boston?”

 

She shrugged. “No clue. It's  _ definitely  _ one of those two though .”

 

I grabbed a paper off the desk and checked it out, looking for anything on it that could give away where it came from. This wasn't a homemade recyclable paper shit. This was the proper stuff. Mass made. I turn it around several times. Nothing — — no brand, no name or anything. Just a fucking piece of blankblank paper.

 

I sighed. “Probably Accord in Boston, or did the the Unbroken and The Brotherhood finally killed him and his army? BB is too big of a mess usually, isn't it? Who is in charge there right now anyway? I haven’t heard of that place in a while.” Like since more than a year and a half.  “Are the Nazis in charge? Those weird Asian guys or maybe those Renaissance wannabes? Or the heroes?”

 

Hellequin grabbed a pink pen and put it in her pocket. “Beats me. Last time I was there all the gangs were in some sort of deadlock, with the heroes too outnumbered to actually do anything besides cleanup. If I had to take a wild guess I would say that the Nazis are in charge. They had more capes than anyone else in the Bay.”

 

I repressed my shudder as we kept going. Nazis ruling a city, now that was a pretty terrifying possibility. Hellequin kept talking. “But honestly the heroes could have gotten lucky and won either way. To tell the truth I have no idea who's actually ruling the city. A consequence of living in the middle of nowhere with you for a long time.”

 

I sighed again. “Where is my surprise by the way? Please tell me that we aren’t going to tour the whole house.”

 

She stopped at the last desk. “Nah,” she said, then to my surprise she activated her power. Her left arm became an onyx black, with pink lines running through and around it, forming ethereal and flowing shapes, that looked like flowers for a second before assuming another shape - one far more abstract- before resuming the previous one. Her nails, now looking dangerous and more akin to claws, were of the purest gold, while her wrist was covered in what looked to be beautiful, thin, and shiny looking purple vines. I was not ashamed to admit that her breaker form at her fullest was quite beautiful; even if I immediately regretted letting her hear the admission.

 

She touched the desk and it started  to… disintegrate was the best term for it. Flowers made of multicolored light began to manifest and where they did, the wood of the desk became little motes of light that were absorbed by her arm. Meanwhile, on the floor around it, what looked to be grass made of light was slowly growing  as the table slowly dissolved. 

 

Hellequin stopped when what looked to be half of the table was gone.

 

“Okay, let’s do this.” Then she punched the wall, her fist going through it as if it weren't there. She made a show of trying to find something in there,  and after a bit of rummaging she said, ‘Aha!’ and pulled her hand of the wall. A card was in her hand, and she give it to me. It was dark blue and it had the word “PASS” on it and nothing else.

 

“A card.”

 

“Don’t look so disappointed. It opens something. On the other side of that closed door is our prize.”

 

I stared at it. This situation was getting even more annoying by the second and I didn’t know what to make of it. What could be so important that it was behind an electronically secured door, inside a relatively insignificant village whose only value was a new trigger. Or  _ maybe  _ this place being so insignificant was what was so useful about it. At least until now…

 

Speaking of insignificant things… “If you knew it was there why didn’t you bring it with you when you met me?”

She shrugged. “Because it wasn’t there. I found it in what I think was the office of the big guy or gal of this little village. I decided to put it in there after that because...well because I wanted to,” she said with happiness in her tone.

 

Ignoring the last part I asked her. “You found it? Just like that?”

“Yep. Power stuff. You know how.”

 

I just sighed yet again. Yeah, I knew how. Though it didn't mean I had to like it. “Let’s just go please. I don’t want to spend more time in here than necessary.” She shrugged and I followed her once again, hoping than we could get this over with quickly. Honestly, her making things more complicated and nonsensical was her kind of thing, so I knew that I shouldn't be so annoyed. She explained to me, after all, how she was. However, the fact that she used the thinker aspect of her power was really worrying. Each one of the powers of her breaker form was quite potent but it came with a heavy cost. She could “absorb” some sort of energy out of objects and people to partially mitigate the cost herself. But  she needed to absorb a specific type of energy for each power, and when she didn’t have it, things could get...complicated.

 

We went through the rest of the house, passing through more rooms and hallways that I didn’t care to count or notice. On the way she told me how the key was hidden on a office  and then pretty much told me she used her power to figure it out to avoid thinking too much about it. Okay, that was bad.

 

“Umm, are you okay?” She turned to look at me and one of her eyebrows raised to give a questioning look. It stung a bit, maybe I should check on her a bit more. “About your power, I mean. You used it too much in a short time and we don't have anyone to help you replenish what you lost.”

 

She waved it off. “It’s fine, I won’t use it anymore and I was really careful. Besides I have you to be the paranoid brains of this operation, remember? I’ll just be the super sexy and feminine muscle. Also we’re here. Final destination and all.”

 

We were in the kitchen near the entrance. It was really simple, with an oven, a table with wood chairs and soft-looking pillows on it, a kitchenette and a fridge. A fan with a light bulb was above our heads and upon seeing it doubt started to creep in. She made me around the house at purpose...again.

 

“Hey Hellequin, did you figure out how these people had power?” I said to her, pointing to the ceiling.

 

She shook her head and answered me. “No, but I guess they had an external source in the wilds or maybe their patrons gave one to them. But for now that’s not important. It’s finally time.”

 

She looked around for a few seconds, searching for something. She, surprisingly, found it on a floor tile in the kitchen. She touched it for a few seconds, as if trying to find a place to grab it. After a few moments, she grabbed a specific edge and touched it. The tile made a clicking noise and moved itself up. Under it, on the empty floor, there was a card slot.

 

She rose up and moved aside, making a gesture as if inviting me to it. I put the card in the groove and it sunk in until another clicking noise was heard. After that, another sound, a rumble was heard across the house. I pulled out the card. Nothing happened; good to know.

 

“That was the classroom, come on.”

 

“The place we first we went in? Why...you're doing this on purpose aren’t you?”

 

She giggled. “Don’t be pissed, you know I like to do this. Now come on, I promise that what’s in there will make you so happy that you’re going to kiss me and love and then we're going to-”

 

“Hard pass, sorry. Let’s just go.”

 

She just sighed and chuckled, following me.

 

The classroom was very different when we got back. The floor, desks and all was parted in the middle. There were newly formed stairs leading down to a metal door with the sign ‘CLASSIFIED’ on it.

 

Someone had watched too many movies while building this.

 

“Seriously?” I said.

 

“Hey it’s not like I designed this thing.”

 

I just went down the stairs and flashed the card. The door went ‘beep’ and opened without me pushing it. I went through, Hellequin right behind me. And for once in this whole time that I was with her I had to admit that she was  _ completely  _ right about something.

 

My mind was blown.

 

I stared at our loot for what it felt like an hour, (though it was probably just a minute) and had only one thing to say.

 

“Holy fuck.”

 

Hellequin just giggled and said, “Called it,”

 

                                                                                                                xXx

 

I always thought that those guys with underground bunkers were just insane wackos that had watched too many conspiracy shows.

 

Now I could have kissed one and asked him to marry me.

 

Hundreds of cans of food and bottles of water with some packages of dehydrated food were all over the place. With this surplus we were going to be safe for weeks, even a few months if we were careful.

 

But it wouldn't be so mind-blowing if it were just that.

 

The weapons were really nice too. There were a few handguns and two shotguns, plus a really wicked looking rifle, and the ammunition to go with it. I wasn't personally a fan of guns; I knew how to shoot them and do it reasonably well, thanks to my training in my previous camp, but I didn't like them too much. Knives however... for some reason were easier. I didn't like to use them much as well (any weapon actually) but I could handle them better. Probably because I wasn't afraid that if I accidentally dropped one it would go off and shoot someone.

 

The clothes were the odd thing in this place, and what made it obvious that this was supposed to be some sort of safe room for people to be in. A small one at least. And if the clothes were  a hint at the purpose of this place, then the costumes were the hint about whom this place was for.

 

There were a pair of black nondescript bodysuits with a pair of domino masks of matching color to accompany them, and of course other accessories like a pair of matching boots and two belts. The kind of thing that capes that they were just starting would use in place of an actual costume, I thought.

 

The pair of beds, the little room to the side with the sink, the toilet, and the  _ shower _ completed the image of temporary home that this place had. The room was big enough to be practically an underground apartment. A little tight for two people, but enough to survive I guess.

 

The beds were relatively soft, the sink and the toilet were working and we had enough food and water for a long while.

 

Oh and the shower! I almost thought I was dreaming when I saw it.

 

Besides all of that, this place had  _ technology. _ Something even rarer these days outside the big cities. A netbook to be precise, but it didn't have any games, books or a connection to the still forming, and possible fake, internet network that existed in some cities according to rumours. All of the other applications or uses were locked under passwords. 

 

All of them besides the creepy surveillance system that the house had of course. 

 

“Where were the cameras? God, there's one even in the bathroom and in that classroom we were in. Did you see one?”

 

Allie just shrugged. “They're probably invisible tinker cameras, undetectable by all means.”

 

_ Really? _

 

“What?” I said to her.

 

“Hey, it's that or admit that we were both too distracted to watch our surroundings.”

I thought about it for a second and admitted she was right. It wasn't like it mattered anyway.

 

It kinda made me wish to remain here for a while, but we couldn’t. Because these things weren’t ours. They belonged to these people, but since they were all probably dead they belonged to the people that protected them (shitty job they did notwithstanding). There was a high chance that they would come to check this place out and I didn't think they would be too happy if they saw us eating their food and sleeping in their beds.

 

No, it was better to just take everything we could and skedaddle out of here.

 

Too bad I was apparently the only one thinking like that…

 

“Stop being a child. We need to go, so stop  _ jumping on the goddamn _ bed and help me grab everything.” She just giggled like a fucking five-year old and kept jumping up and down on the bed. I sighed, frustrated. This was getting old fast, so I did the most sensible thing I could think of. 

 

I grabbed a knife out of the table and threw it at her. She yelped, turned on her power and the knife became petals.

 

Hellequin glared at me, shock on her face. “Okay, I get that I can be  annoying  _ but what the fuck.  _ Are you trying to kill me!?”

A smirk was adorning my face as I told her, “I knew you wouldn't die. Now come on.”

 

She huffed and tried to keep the charade that she was still pissed, but couldn't keep for long, and she just shrugged and did as told. However not even a minute passed before she started whining again.

 

“Please, I want a  _ shower _ . Please just this time. I'll  _ worship _ you if you say yes. Pretty please?”

 

“No, we need to leave.”

 

She huffed. “It would be for just another hour, tops. Besides you need to shower too. You reek of corpses and sweat and it's been  _ weeks _ since we cleaned ourselves in something that wasn't a river or something like that.”

 

I wanted to say no. To tell her I did not smelt awful and that we needed to leave but the truth was I... really,  _ really _ wanted a hot shower too. Or just the feeling of soap on my body. Or the water just running through my body and cleaning it..  She was right. It had been so long since we had that luxury… so I did one of the dumbest things I’d ever done in my life.

 

“Come onnnn. Please. Pretty please? I've  _ never _ asked you to do anything lik-” 

 

“Fine. Five minutes each, so shut up and let's hurry.”

 

Hellequin jumped up and down ecstatically and rushed with a bag to the little side room with the shower.

 

I went after she finished and I had to admit that I didn't regret it.

 

                                                                                                         xXx

  
  


We had brought some duffel bags alongside our backpacks to grab what we 

could, but it became pretty obvious that they wouldn't be sufficient.

 

Lucky for us, there were some empty bags in the bunker as well, which made that problem moot.

 

After a while we were done and I was ready to finally get the hell out of dodge and never return. Of course it was at that precise moment that something happened, the whole paradigm was turned on its head and I started to regret, once again, my life choices.

 

“Hey, Lucas.” I snapped my head in her direction. She  _ never _ called me by my actual name. It was always that dumb codename or an even dumber nickname. If she called me that...fuck , what was happening now? “Come here, you need to see this.  _ Now _ .”

 

She was without her mask and her blonde hair was running free but instead of her usual easy going look she had instead a grim one on her face. She had the notebook on her lap and was probably watching the camera feed. What had she seen?

 

“What's going on?” I asked her.

 

She showed me. And my eyes widened at what I saw.

 

Men. Armed men and women and all wearing some kind of black armor and helmets. Did I mention they were armed to the teeth? Because they were.

 

They were also entering the house and spreading around the village.

 

Our escape suddenly became much dangerous.

 

Fucking shower.

 

“Hey remember those self imposed limitations that you put on your own powers?” She said casually, like talking about the weather. I just nodded mutely. “I think this is the perfect time for you and me to talk about them.”

 

**Touch 1.2 END.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, there enjoy this new chapter and of course please send kudos and comment if you liked it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there thank you for reading On The Edge, please leave comments and kudos if you liked it. Credit goes for the amazing Wildbow for writing the Parahuman series and to the wonderful members of the Cauldron Discord that made this actually readable: Juff and Vanishedschism. Thank you so much


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